Venezuela through the looking glass?

by Daniel on August 12, 2004

What the bloody hell is this all on about??? My Spanish is a bit ropey, but I have at least established to my own satisfaction that vheadline.com is correctly reporting a Venezuelan national press story, and VENPRES was reporting a story which El Mundo of Madrid did in fact carry (but isn’t available without paying). In this story, El Mundo is apparently reporting (and, btw, I’ve usually found the Spanish press pretty reliable on the few occasions I’ve had to rely on them) … the following assertions:

The CIA undersecretary for southern hemisphere affairs, William Spencer, has convened a conference for CIA country heads in Santiago to discuss what they are going to do about Hugo Chavez

The CIA apparently regards it as a foregone conclusion that Chavez will win his recall referendum on Sunday (note: I think it’s actually pretty close)

The CIA believe that if Chavez wins, he will overthrow the governments of Bolivia and Colombia, then use the multiple corruption scadals in Peru as an excuse to invade and remove the current government

The CIA believe that Chavez’ ultimate plan is to use Venezuela and Peru as twin centres of a revolution to create a Latin American socialist superstate.

In order to forestall this “domino effect”, the CIA is seriously thinking about using “military and financial pressure” to remove Chavez

I’d be grateful if any CT readers could confirm to me that El Mundo has the wrong end of the stick, because the alternative of believing that the intelligence service of our only superpower has a view of the world rather less realistic than that of David Icke, while not exactly without precedent, is pretty frightening when it applies to one of the world’s biggest petroleum exporters. In any case, if a plot to assassinate Chavez shows up between now and Sunday, you read it here first, unless you subscribe to El Mundo, VENPRES, vheadline.com or any one of a number of mailing lists.

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The CIA believe that if Chavez wins, he will overthrow the governments of Bolivia and Colombia, then use the multiple corruption scadals in Peru as an excuse to invade and remove the current government
The CIA believe that Chavez’ ultimate plan is to use Venezuela and Peru as twin centres of a revolution to create a Latin American socialist superstate.

WTF? Do they get their information from Jose Chalabi, well-known exile from Bolivia?

The only explanation I can think of is that there is, after all, quite a lot of crack cocaine about in that part of the world, and that at some point in the trail of sources, somebody has been smoking rather a lot of it.

“Justice offered up to $67 million of our taxpayer money to ChoicePoint in a no-bid deal for computer profiles with private information on every citizen of half a dozen nations. The choice of citizens to spy on caught my eye. While the September 11 highjackers came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and the Arab Emirates, ChoicePoint’s menu offered records on Venezuelans, Brazilians, Nicaraguans, Mexicans and Argentines”

Well, the Moonie Times is reporting the El Mundo story via UPI, so one presumes that either it exists somewhere, or UPI is now reporting vheadlines verbatim.

And ‘undersecretary’ is ‘deputy director’ in some other pieces I’ve dredged up (denying that the said deputy director is in Chile). So my guess is that it’s just a translation thing — in the way that the Spanish prime minister is ‘el Presidente del Gobierno’.

This sort of lurid paranoia about any sort of subjectively reformist tendency in Latin America was pretty standard for the CIA (and State Dept.) during the cold war, so the most parsimonious explanation is that the agency’s LA desk is still headed by some aging dinosaur whose reflexes are stuck in 1970.

Doesn’t make it any less worrying, though I’d like to know how they plan to resource any such intervention, what with all the other stuff they’re supposed to be doing.

I hear Chavez is ahead by at least 8%, and that sounds like an underestimate (basically people don’t want to change horses in midstream, even discounting the claims of Chavez’ popularity).

I doubt that this would be manufactured by Chavez; his supporters more or less take the hostility of the CIA as a given and wouldn’t be much swayed by such a story — though they might be scared. And since Chavez is nervous about military coups or attacks from Colombia, spreading a story like this would be inclined to make those more likely.

I don’t think the CIA does actually believe this – I think they needed a cover story to justify another coup attempt, and this is the best they could come up with.

Really, this is very sub-par. I’m disappointed! They ought to throw in a few claims about WMD and Drones Capable of Attacking the Homeland like they did last time with Iraq, to make it more “credible”.

Well, OK, something a bit different. The American public may be by and large ill-informed, but they wouldn’t fall for exactly the same story twice in a row, would they?

Yes, when I read it yesterday (it was on most newspapers here), it seemed like a wild rumor. But the probable Chavez victory must worry the Bush administration a bit. Their whole policy towards Venezuela hinges on deposing Chavez. If he wins, they have no policy (and they look like fools).

The scenario you described does look like the kind of scene cooked up to stir up anti-Chavez sentiment. There is an excellent documentary on the failed coup d’etat to overthrow Chavez in 2000; you can link to it here:http://www.chavezthefilm.com/html/home.htm